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Bottler

Bottlers fill, pack and operate bottling machinery in food, drink and bottling factories.

Annual Salary

£17,000 to £23,000

Average UK salary in 2023 was £34,963
(source Office for National Statistics)

Working hours

41 to 43 a week

You could work: evenings / weekends; on shifts

0.9%
Future employment

There will be 0.9% fewer Bottler jobs in 2027.

Day to day tasks

In this role you could:

  • set up machines and start the bottling process
  • deal with minor problems on the production line
  • report more serious machinery problems to your line manager or a technician
  • keep machinery clean and sterile to meet high standards of food safety
  • make sure bottles or jars are correctly filled and labelled
  • move finished products to storage areas ready for despatch

Working environment

You may need to wear protective clothing.

You could work in a factory.

Your working environment may be noisy.

You can get into this job through:

  • an apprenticeship
  • applying directly
  • specialist training offered by a professional body
Apprenticeship

You can get into this job through an intermediate apprenticeship as a food and drink process operator, or as a lean manufacturing operative.

Entry requirements

You'll usually need:

  • some GCSEs, usually including English and maths, or equivalent, for an intermediate apprenticeship
For more information
Direct application

There are no set entry requirements if you want to apply directly for jobs, but some employers may ask for GCSEs in English and maths. Any previous practical experience you have in manufacturing will be useful.

Other routes

You could do the General Certificate in Packaging offered by the Institute of Brewing and Distilling. You'll normally need to be working in a bottling plant or small brewery to do this.

Requirements and restrictions

You'll need to:

  • have a good level of fitness

More information

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With experience, you could become a production line team leader. You could also train to work as a machinery technician or quality control assistant, or move into warehouse work.

Skills required and how your skills match up

What skills are required?

You'll need:

  • to be thorough and pay attention to detail
  • the ability to work well with others
  • the ability to accept criticism and work well under pressure
  • the ability to operate and control equipment
  • to be flexible and open to change
  • the ability to work well with your hands
  • excellent verbal communication skills
  • physical skills like movement and coordination
  • thinking and reasoning skills
  • to be able to carry out basic tasks on a computer or hand-held device
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